A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends 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* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
