A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
