A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
