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A recurring idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.

It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled 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

And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."

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

Key Exceptions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid