A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*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 killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
