A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant 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 revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, 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 digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
