A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time 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 mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
