A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
