An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising 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 scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
