A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up 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 assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming 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 clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
