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A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.

In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A Sharper Tone in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.

Notable Exclusions

A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid