An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*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 at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
