A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
