A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
