A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
