A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
