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An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, 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 early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.

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. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid