A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, 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 updated that very premise 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 wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
