A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
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* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
