An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
