An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
