A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
