A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
