A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
