A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit 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 wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
