An age-old theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*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 packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
