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A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle 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 predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Key Exclusions

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid