A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
