An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually 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 wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
