A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
