A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
