A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition 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 enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
