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An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.

A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exclusions

Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid