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An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid