A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
