A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
