A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient 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 fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
