A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*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 finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
