An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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
