A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
