An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
