A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away 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 largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
