A recurring motif runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
