A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
