A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — 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 daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. 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 forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
