A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
