A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
