A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
