A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting 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" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
