An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — 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. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
