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An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of Film Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.

It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid