An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
