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A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting 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 collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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 affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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