A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful 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 affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
