A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
