A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting 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 greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
