A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy 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 Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing 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, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, 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 a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
