A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
