A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
