A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer 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
