An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely 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 a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
