A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging 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 fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*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 shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
