A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure 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 makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
