A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
