A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
