An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
