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An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.

A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.

In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed 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*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.

Key Outliers

There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid