A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt 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 merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
