A recurring idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
