An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
