A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources 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 spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated 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 rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
