An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
