An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
