A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
