A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
