An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era 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 packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
