An age-old idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
