A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
