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An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.

If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exceptions

A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid