A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept 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 enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume 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 Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really 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 persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*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 ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
