A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
