A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
