A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, 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 a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, 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 colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
