A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
