A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
