A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
