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An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Legacy of Film Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid