A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
