A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
