A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only 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 possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
