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A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid