An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
