A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 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 enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
