An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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, 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 alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
