An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
