An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually 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. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
