A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, 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
