A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit 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 affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
