A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
