A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
