A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
