A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
