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A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.

There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exceptions

A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid