An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story 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 riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
