An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*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 murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
