An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*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 conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
