A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
