A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
