A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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
