A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
