A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised 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 take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
