A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
