An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
