An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
