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An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money 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 distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid