A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
