An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
