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A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant 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 that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid