A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
