A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
