An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains 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 Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From 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 Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
