A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
