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A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid