A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
