An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
