A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
