A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
