An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
