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A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.

There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid