A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*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 murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
