An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
