An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
