An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
