A familiar motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
