An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
