A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
