An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
