A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
