A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually 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 persistently idolize billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists 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 are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
