A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
