A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*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 conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
