A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier 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 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 be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
