A recurring theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
