A recurring theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
