A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
