A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists 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 Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
