A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From 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 entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved 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 real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
