A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
