A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
