A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *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, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
