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A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.

The Release That Fails to Transform

However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.

Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Message in 2025

Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid