🔗 Share this article

An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Release That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid