A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, 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 tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
