A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in 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 number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 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 more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
