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A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.

It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Exclusions

Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid