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A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid