A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
