A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, 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 wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
