A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure 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 daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
