A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, 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 redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
