A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
