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A recurring idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes 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 arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*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 shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

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

Significant Exclusions

There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid