A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune 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 obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
