A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, 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 affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
