An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
