A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
