A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic 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 privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death 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 finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
