🔗 Share this article

An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Outlet That Changes Nothing

Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.

In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exceptions

Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid