A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
