A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
