A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*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 killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
