An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
