A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid