A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses 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
