A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
