An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered 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 shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
