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An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised 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 assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Release That Alters Little

However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.

Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Outliers

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid