A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
