A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades 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. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
