An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
