A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
