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An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.

Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid