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A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.

There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid