A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming 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 cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
