A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
