A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
