A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, 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 societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*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 national television (*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 hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
