A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new 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 desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
