A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant 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 updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
