A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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
