A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet 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 justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
