A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
