🔗 Share this article

A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit 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 wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.

In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 killed by mythological beasts (*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 directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Key Exceptions

There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid