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A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, 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 entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid