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A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Release That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid