A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
