An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
