A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
