An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
