A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs 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. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
