A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly 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 revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
