An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
