An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
