A recurring idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
