An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
