A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
