A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
