An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
