A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories 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, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
