A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
