A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
