An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
