An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
