An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
