An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
