An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
