A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
