In September 2024, Netflix debuted its latest offering in the world of glamour, intrigue, crime, and wealth. The Perfect Couple, starring Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber, follows the events surrounding a wedding that takes a dark turn when a body is discovered in the harbor just hours before the ceremony. As you might expect, this unfortunate event makes every member of the wedding party a suspect. The plot directly draws inspiration from the literary world of Agatha Christie, where penal questions of “who did what” haunt luxurious settings, extravagant outfits, and striking visuals—reminiscent of 19th-century first-class train coaches and steamships bound for exotic destinations.

In a surprising turn from Les Misérables, the rich have dominated the crime genre on TV for some years now. A century and a half ago, Victor Hugo, writing at the height of the realism and naturalism literary movements in Europe, created Les Misérables—a humanitarian work with a clear political and social project during an era of both change and disappointment. The novel focused on characters from the lower classes, set against a backdrop of everyday life, mundane situations, and crime. Through the crimes of the poor, Hugo brought to light the unjust class-based social structure and legal practices of 19th-century France.

In contrast, today’s TV and cinema seem more interested in the crimes of the rich. The poor and their crimes no longer appear compelling enough for a 10-episode TV show, relegated instead to cautious treatment in docu-series and news programs. But what’s driving the rise of this crime subgenre—pure entertainment and escapism, or social commentary on an increasingly unequal society? Murder on the Orient Express is perhaps one of the earliest well-known examples of crime mysteries among the rich. Its successful adaptation to the big screen helped establish a subgenre of its own, blending murder mystery, wealth, and a form of psychological and social commentary. The ingredients are simple and easy to combine for the perfect dramatic formula.

This subgenre experienced a resurgence in the late 2010s and continued to flourish during the pandemic and beyond, with films like Kenneth Branagh’s adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (2017), Death on the Nile (2022), and A Haunting in Venice (2023), alongside TV hits like Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, and The White Lotus. Blockbusters like Knives Out and its sequel, Glass Onion, also contributed to the revival.

This era not only revitalized this subgenre but also gave rise to satellite subgenres like the “Ripleyesque” crime genre. This type of narrative emerged in the late 1960s with films like Pasolini’s Teorema, peaked in 1999 with Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, and resurfaced recently with Netflix’s Ripley and Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. Here, outsiders are willing to kill to enter the world of the rich and famous. These subgenres share common themes of crime, psychological tension, and opulent settings, yet the “Ripleyesque” twist sets them apart.

Even if we don’t expect all art to be art engagé, every form of art is a political and social statement, inseparable from the social context and prevailing forms of knowledge of its time. In an era marked by discontent with the rich and the fading illusion of the American Dream, we are seeing more wealthy people on both big and small screens. While the rich seem like an easy target in this social context, the narratives often evoke only superficial sentiments, lacking real social critique.

If Godard or Griffith once said, “All you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun,” then to craft a great TV show today, all you need is a gun and some wealthy people. Beneath this simple formula and its entertainment facade, social commentary has been reduced to a shallow glorification of wealth and luxury. The banal crimes depicted in these narratives serve as stand-ins for the real crimes of the rich, functioning merely as plot devices to sustain mystery and develop psychological drama, while the wealthy exist simply to provide a lavish setting and visual appeal.