A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story 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 affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
