A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people 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 directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
