A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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
