A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing 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 extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming 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 — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
