An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, 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 colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
