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An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance 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 top film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.

In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid