A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
