A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
