An age-old theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
