A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
