A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
