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A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid