A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, 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 dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
