An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
