A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really 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 worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
