An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
