An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
