A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting 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 cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
