An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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
