A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
