A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict 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 exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor 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 revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*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 ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
