A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
