A recurring theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
