A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
