An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, 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 revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
