An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
