A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*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 hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
