A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious 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 distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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
