An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence 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 created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
