A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
