A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations 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 evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog 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 a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
