A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, 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 a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
