A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth 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 investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
