An age-old idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage 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 makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
