A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient 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 affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
