An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
