A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually 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 idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, 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 obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
