An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because 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" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
