An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
