A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
