A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*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 directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
