A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. 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 lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
