A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals 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 assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory 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 affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range 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*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
