A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*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 stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
