An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered 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 ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
