An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
