An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*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 gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends 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
