A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
