An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
