An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches 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 manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, 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 colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
