An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered 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, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer 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 redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
