A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
