An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
