A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
