A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
