A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
