A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich 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 be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
