A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
