An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone 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 angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
