A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
