A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
