An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising 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 clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
