A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet 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 promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
