An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, 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 would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
