A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending 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.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
