A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
