A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled 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 beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
