A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth 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 devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
