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An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.

There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid