An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 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 more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
