A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
