An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
