A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
