A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
