🔗 Share this article

A recurring motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists 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 tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

An Angrier Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Notable Outliers

Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid