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A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.

A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.

It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. 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 forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Outliers

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid