An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
