An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
