An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s 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 take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really 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 persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
