A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
