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A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid