An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*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 stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
