A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, 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 collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
