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A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.

A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity

In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.

It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Changes Nothing

However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.

In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Edge in 2025

Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Significant Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, 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 reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid