An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely 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 sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
