An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
