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A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid