An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned 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 clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
