A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
