An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated 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 affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
