A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character 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 revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
