An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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
