A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
