A familiar motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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
