A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally 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 obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
