A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
