A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
