A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
