A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor 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 future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
