A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
