A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
