A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating 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 gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
