A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
