A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting 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" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
