A familiar idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
