An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly 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 exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
