🔗 Share this article

A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing 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, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Although 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 enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid