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A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exclusions

A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid