A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
