An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
