A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds 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* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
