An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with 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 complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
