An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise 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 riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
