An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid