A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
