A familiar idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, 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. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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
