An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
