A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
