A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, 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 lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
