A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
