A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
