A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
