An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is 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 culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
