An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
