An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
