An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
