A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated 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 assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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 devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
