A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, 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, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
