An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, 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 alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
