A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
