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A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.

There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.

In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.

An Angrier Message in 2025

Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Key Exceptions

Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid