An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence 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 endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
