A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle 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 mostly 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 films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered 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 executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
