A recurring theme permeates 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 antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
