A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, 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 a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
