A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
