An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
