A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*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 point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
