An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
