A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
