An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, 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 would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
