An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely 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* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
