An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, 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 public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, 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 enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
