An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. This notion that goes far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
