A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
