A recurring motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really 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 worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
