An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
