A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
