A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message 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 pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
