A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
