🔗 Share this article

A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Significant Exclusions

There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid