🔗 Share this article

A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches far back to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity

In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.

There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Fails to Transform

And yet, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.

In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).

"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."

The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Significant Exclusions

A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid