A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated 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 gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
