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A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Outlet That Fails to Transform

However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.

In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

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