A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
