A recurring motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, 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 "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
