An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This notion which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
