A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, 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 revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
