A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
