A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
