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A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Key Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid