A recurring motif runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, 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 revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds 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* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
