A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune 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 investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
