An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
