A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely 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 horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
