An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
