A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
