An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
