A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely 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 respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, 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, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
