A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
