An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
