A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
