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An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.

Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

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

Notable Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid