A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence 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 allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
