A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned 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 apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
