An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
