A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
