A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family 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 Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
