A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, 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 revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
