A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. 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 to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
