A recurring motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
