An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in 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 film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
