An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying 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 real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
