An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
