A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
