A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up 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 beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
