A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
