A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. 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 rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
