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A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Key Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid