A recurring motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends 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* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
