An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. 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 be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
