A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
