A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
