A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, 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 — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
