An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
