An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast 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 kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed 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, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
