An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling 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 prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
