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A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, 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 — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exceptions

There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid