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A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming 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 — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered 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 gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid