A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth 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 devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
