A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
