An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
