A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
