An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
