An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals 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 respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
