An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, 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 early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
