A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s 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 replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
