A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
