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A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered 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 executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exclusions

There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid