An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
