A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era 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 at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that 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 regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
