A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 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 incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
