An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 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 furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
