A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing 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 reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
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* finds himself confined to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
