An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid