A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
