An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
