An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
