A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories 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 ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
