An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*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 super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
