An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not 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 insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
