A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era 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 replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
