A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
