An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
