A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
