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An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Release That Fails to Transform

And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid