A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
