A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, 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 determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
