An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric 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 set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
