A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson 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 affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
