A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
