An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
