An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone 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 more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
