A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
