A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson 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 slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
