An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story 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 contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
