A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
