A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated 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 point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
