An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, 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 largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
