A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, 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 wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
