An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
