A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated 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 assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
