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A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.

A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid