An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*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 improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
