An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
