A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
