A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually 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. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
