A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
