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A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money 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 consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Outliers

There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid