A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
