An age-old idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
