A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
