A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *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 string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
