A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
