A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving 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 films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably 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 lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
