An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
