A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people 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 directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
