An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
