An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains 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, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
