An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, 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 a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
