A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era 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 filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
