A recurring motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant 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 digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
