A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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, 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 hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
