An age-old theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
