A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies 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 sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
