An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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 slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled 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 revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
