An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting 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 allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
