A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
