A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated 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 assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
