A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting 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 assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind 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* loses 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
