A recurring idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated 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 up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
