A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
