A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
