An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 mythological beasts (*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 gunned down point blank on national television (*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 extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid