A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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 fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*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 up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
