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An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, of course.

There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.

If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid