A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
