A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely 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 sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
