An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury 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 film, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
