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A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Film Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

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

Key Exclusions

Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid