A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *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 abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed 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 riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 killed by mythological beasts (*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 executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
