A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed 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 shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid