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A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.

It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.

In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid