An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
