An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
