A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
