An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about 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. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten 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 stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
