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An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.

If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Outliers

A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid