A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
