An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
