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An age-old idea courses through a host 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 evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Film Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid