A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
