A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
