An age-old idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
